


Smile, The Dead Are Not Dead, Only Dearly Departed.

by Elegantmango



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Canon-Typical Violence, Castiel is 18, Dean is 19, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Kind of a case fic I guess, M/M, Monster fic, Sam is 12, Spooky, Teenage Rebellion, Teenage characters, This takes place in the 80s, or does it?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 12:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14105781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elegantmango/pseuds/Elegantmango
Summary: Spring time 1986, Castiel Novak is a quite teen living in a closed off sea side community. Things change however, when he is the last person to see a classmate before she disappears. Castiel can feel a change on the horizon, especially when a rebellious teen shows up in town with his little brother in a black Chevy, asking questions and upturning dark secrets hidden in Azurite Cove.





	Smile, The Dead Are Not Dead, Only Dearly Departed.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing this pairing, even though I have been in the fandom since season 5! I am really exited to join the writers here on ao3, and I just hope I do these two justice!  
> The inspiration for the title is a song called "Waltz of the dearly departed" by Emily Wells. I thought that it was fitting.  
> I will update the tags as I go, so look out for that!  
> (Ps. Cas doesn't know Nancy, but they go to the same school.)  
> Hope you enjoy!  
> Feel free to leave comments if you feel like it, constructive criticism is always welcome :)  
> My Tumblr is :  
> https://elegantmango.tumblr.com/

Whoever had the idea that high-school is the best time of your life had obviously never had to deal with a teenage boy.

Nancy would have agreed with them a week ago but it seemed that Gabriel was single-handedly trying to ruin her high-school career. It’s not like she didn’t know who she was getting involved with when he asked her to the spring dance. She should have been smarter, she should have trusted the rumours about him, he was everything that her mother had warned her about and that is exactly why she liked him.

She cursed as she tripped over a crack in the road. Gabriel had ditched her half way through the night only to resurface an hour later being hauled out by the scruff of the neck by a chaperon, in true Gab fashion he didn’t just sneak a smoke under the bleachers, oh no, he set them on fire. His behaviour was getting predictable and Nancy was finished with him.  
She went over on her ankle for the second time in half a mile. She was caked up to her knees in mud her once white petticoat was speckled with dirt, it’s pink hem blended into an ugly grey colour due to the mud and grime. It had rained relentlessly all day the weather finally breaking, leaving behind it an unnatural fog giving the street an unnerving hue.

The sleepy seaside town had retired to bed hours ago. Azurite Cove boasted under 7,000 residents dwindling each year being directly linked to the fact that the average age was 76. Anyone younger had the sense to move to the city years ago and in a couple of years Nancy would be one of them.

The town borrowed its name from the precious stone mined from the coves lining the coast. From what her mother used to tell her the town had once been prosperous welcoming silver-screen starlets and rich oil barons to the town, but all good things must end. As the Azurite dried up so did the money, why would the rich and famous care about a has-been Hollywood hot-spot? She had grown up watching the town slowly die closing in on itself like a dying flower as more businesses disappeared, eventually infecting the centre of town leaving only the old diner in its wake.

She jogged across the road and down the stairs leading to the beach intending to take a shortcut across the sand dunes. The seashore was deserted, the only sound deriving from the water creeping across the sand inching closer to her with every passing moment. The night was unnaturally still giving the air a claustrophobic quality to it as if Nancy was listening to a distant and hazy conversation only catching words here and there.

She had walked these beaches hundreds of times before, had grown up in the heart of Azurite Coves’ community. Her grandfather on her mothers’ side was the town minister, her father owned the biggest (and only) fishing company in town as a result she had spent a lifetime exploring these beaches digging for treasure and looking for Azurite along the coast. She had nothing to fear she knew every face in town.

She kicked her shoes off and moved closer to the sea letting the water wash over her toes. She bends her neck back looking up at the night sky, the moon, the stars. A wave of calm washes over her settling her nerves.

Bang!

The sound cracked through the air shattering her ease of mind and unsettling her to the core. She whips around and stares wide eyed in the direction of the noise, only to be blinded by headlights coming from the road running opposite to the shore. The adrenalin drained out of her body instantly as she slumped over and put her hand over her heart trying to catch her breath.  
After a moment she let out a nervous giggle.  
Wait until she told her mother they would both howl with laughter.

If there was the sound of footsteps behind her she didn’t hear them.

If she was being silly she would say that the whining of the wind sounded like uneven breathing.

If the unmistakable pressure of clammy hands wrapped around her neck, she would say that it was just her scarf knotted tightly against her throat.

***

Castiel had been absentmindedly picking at the peeling linoleum counter when Anna and Gabriel sauntered into the diner hip to hip tipsy from their night of dancing. An occasion he had artfully avoided by picking up an extra shift at Bobby’s instead.

“Cassie!” Gabriel jeered from across the diner launching into a theatrical bow, dragging a laughing Anna down with him.

“I assume you had fun at the dance,” he chuckled, leaning back against the counter abandoning the hope of doing anything productive.

“It would have been better if you were there with us,” Anna replied kindly, “Who are Aramis and Porthos without Athos?”

“Dumas? I told you that you would like the book!” Cas smiled widely.

“I assume your speaking nerd and therefore am not offended that I am being ignored,” Gabriel cuts in.

“Gadreel was disappointed that you weren’t at prom, he asked after you,” Anna presses on ignoring Gab.

“He knows me, being social isn’t my forte, I’ll see him over summer anyway he’s going to be working in the kitchens during the holidays.”

“What? You told me you would talk to bobby about getting me the job!?” Gabriel wined.

“Bobby doesn’t trust you with food Gabriel nothing I say will change that.”

“That was one time! I can’t believe he's still holding that against me! What am I going to do over summer now? I refuse to be stuck at home with Sergeant Mother,” Cas smiles at his siblings’ codename for their fathers’ wife.  
Anna pats his arm comfortingly, “You’ll find something Gab, you just have to look.”

"Yeah, if you pulled your thumb out of your ass.”

All three turned to stare at the new arrival, Meg gave them all the stink eye and stomped into the employee rec-room.

“Uncalled for my dude, I’m a paying customer you can’t talk to me like that what would Bobby say?” Gabriel called after her.

“Please, you fell out of favour with Bobby the day you set foot in McDonalds,” Cas scoffs.

“A man can have two loves.”

“I don’t think Nancy would agree.”

“Nancy’s a bore,” Gabriel slumped grumpily across one of the window booths, Cas looks over at Anna questioningly as she slides into the seat opposite him.

“Gabriel is unlucky in love,” Anna crooned, "Through no fault of his own of course.”

“I’m as innocent as a new-born lamb,” Gabriel sighed dramatically, “Only a free burger will mend my heart”.

“Nice try wasteoid,” Cas retorts dryly, spinning on his heels and striding towards the counter on the way to the kitchen tossing his tips from the night into the till, paying for his brothers’ food.

It was past midnight now the diner had been deserted all night, his siblings being the first customers in over 4 hours. Castiel treasured nights like these, where he could go hours without speaking to a soul. Innumerable days spent curled up in the window booths gazing out at the sea and stars when he was supposed to be working. Bobby never seemed to notice, or if he did he never mentioned it, perhaps aware that this was the only escape that Cas had from his daily life.

He slipped into the kitchen unknotting his apron as he went.

“Hey Bobby? Could you throw a burger on the grill for Gab?”

A grease covered middle-aged man emerged from the stock room, a bag of frozen burger patties in one hand a carton of beer in the other.  
  
"Depends, ‘he pay for it?” Bobby sets the beer down on the counter, placing the grill pan on the cooker.

"I’ll cover him.”

“Well its getting late son, you can go ahead and leave after we’ve finished up here Meg just showed up. “

Meg had always intimidated Cas, the boy always tried to avoid her when possible ducking out before she showed up for the night shift.  
With that Bobby hands him an overflowing garbage bag and turned back towards his work.

Cas fought with the bag as he struggled down the stairs leading to the back alley, lobbing it into the dumpster. He collapses against the opposite wall gasping for breath, Damn it! He should have listened to Gabriel and signed up for football, even though he would have looked like a scrawnier Italian American Jennifer Grey. Closing his eyes he breathes in the salty sea air gathering himself. He found himself hypnotised by the systematic crashing of the waves, so much so that he was startled by a high-pitched hum reverberating from beyond the pathway.

Pushing away from the wall he made his way towards the source of the noise. A pesky alley-cat had been making Cas’s life hell for the last couple of weeks, the little furry devil creature had started small by dragging the contents of the dumpster across the alley. However recently things had escalated somewhat, the cat had now adapted to his environment learning how to open doors. If Cas was being truthful he rather enjoyed his rivalry with the furry beast, even leaving leftovers for him on the back steps. He dodged behind the bins trying to get the jump on the asshole, smiling fondly at the thought of the tabby’s devil may care attitude.

What he found however was a young woman. By the looks of her she had been at the prom with Gabriel and Anna and judging by the dress she was wearing, the electric blue bodice of her garment, sewn together with excess fabric overlapping the vibrant pink layers below, the sweet-heart neckline that was obscured by the heavy jewellery weighing down her neck. The whole ensemble gave Castiel a headache. He approached her cautiously holding his hands up so that she would understand that his intentions where to help her. As he got closer to her two things hit him at once; first was the putrid smell emitting from the girl, the next was the state of her clothes, the hem of her dress was tattered and dirty bleeding into the material of her underskirt, her side was stained as if she had been lying in the sand.

“Hello? Are you ok? Do you need me to call you a cab? Your parents? There’s a phone in the diner.”  
He watched her passively as she swayed on her feet attempting to shuffle past him. Instead she fell forward on her knees and went limp. It seems she had a bit too much of a good time tonight.

“Well shit.”

He stands for a second contemplating his next move, he needed Bobby. He leaned forward to grab her arm to place her in a safer position while he was gone. As he touched her arm she sat up ram rod straight cracking him in the face making him jerks back so quickly that he falls flat on his ass, scrambling backwards to give her space.

“Sorry! Sorry!” he exclaims holding his hands up to his bleeding nose. Her eyes were wide in fear darting from the florescent exit sign over Bobby’s back entrance to the sky overhead, never once settling on Castiel.

“No…...no….no…. NO, NO, NO!!!!” Her eyes rolling to the back of her head. She started to struggle against an invincible force hitting her head against the pavement beneath her, writhing in pain and terror, the opalescent quality of her dress reflecting the light from the alley.  
Cas ripped open the back door and yelled for Bobby.

There was a sudden silence behind him, a chilling calm that made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. He turned around to find her levitating off the ground her over made-up face twisted into an unnatural smile. Her bare toes scraping the cement pavement as she advanced on him reaching towards him with a manicured hand.  
“Smile, the dead are not dead, only dearly departed.”

She was blinking in and out of existence giving the appearance of vibrating out of her own skin.

Cas’s legs buckle under him and he slides down the wall in terror trying to speak but only managing a pained squeak, as he felt an invisible force pressing down on his throat. Like being a hundred feet underwater being crushed by the weight of gravity. His brain felt woolly and his tongue like led, unable to call for help.  
At the back of his mind he heard a door banging against a wall and raised voices coming from the kitchen behind him, Castiel lets go closing his eyes and letting himself fall into the comfort of the abyss.


End file.
